The following description provides a summary of information relevant to the present disclosure and is not a concession that any of the information provided or publications referenced herein is prior art to the claimed invention.
The direct detection of blood proteins can benefit a number of scientific and clinical applications, such as in monitoring the ratio of specific protein glycation in diabetes, biomarkers for drug research and environmental monitoring, cancer diagnostics and treatment, and the like. The current clinical and laboratory measurement techniques for blood proteins are boronate affinity immunoassay, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), mass spectrometry and capillary based systems, which are time consuming and costly.
More efficient and fast response measurement methods could greatly benefit and enhance related application areas, especially for developing the next generation of portable handheld diagnostic devices capable of real-time analysis. Several optics-based diagnostic techniques, such as near-infrared spectroscopy, polarimetry, optical coherence tomography, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), Raman and fluorescence spectroscopy have recently been investigated for monitoring blood components. Many of these optical methods, however, are limited in their usefulness due to the effects of confounding substances that may be present in the sample under investigation.
One method for the in vitro selection of nucleic acid molecules that are able to bind with high specificity to target molecules is generally known as SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Amplification) and is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,096 titled “Nucleic Acid Ligands” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,270,163, titled “Nucleic Acid Ligands” each of which is specifically incorporated by reference herein.
Although the currently used SELEX processes are useful, there is always a need for improved processes that allow for the selection of more selective of aptamers to be generated from in vitro selection techniques.